Friday, December 7, 2012

Vampires, Dragons and Other illusions

Actor Nicholas Cage recently had to defend himself against
charges he was really an ageless vampire. His response followed discovery of a
photograph taken in 1870 of a man who resembles Cage.

“Personally, I believe it’s him and that he is some sort of
walking undead/vampire, et cetera, who quickens/reinvents himself once every 75
years or so,” antiques dealer Jack Mord wrote in the post, which has since been
removed. “150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult,
or a talk show host.”

Cage, who has starred in a movie about vampires, good
naturedly dismissed the claim, pointing out that vampires don’t have
reflections, and he sees his image every morning in the mirror.Besides, he said, since vampires can’t be
photographed, he can’t be the man in the aged photograph.

Question: how does Cage know vampires don’t have a
reflection?

Christopher Lee as Dracula

He based that claim on a book called Dracula that author Abraham “Bram” Stoker (below right) published in 1897.The book recounts the life of a man who drank
blood, lived forever, turned into a bat when necessary and had no
reflection.Stoker created Dracula from
legends augmented by visits he made to Eastern Europe.

Does that mean vampires exist?That they have no reflection?

Stoker

Obviously not.Simply
because someone writes a fictional account doesn’t make it either accurate or
true.Nevertheless, some people still
believe in vampires.

Fiction simply has become supposed fact.

That’s hardly the first time this week.Disney World just opened Fantasyland in Orlando
and did so with characteristic flair: a dragon (below) breathing fire flew over the
iconic Cinderella’s castle.It was an
amazing creature with wings and a long body.

Disney's dragon

Question: how did Disney engineers know what a dragon looks
like?

They based their design on what artists through the years
have decided a dragon must look like.Actually, there never has been an animal like that.No animal can have that giant a body and go
airborne on wing-strength alone.None
can breathe fire.

The closest thing would be a pterodactyl , an ancient flying
creature.However, no human has ever
seen one alive.Based on fossils, those
creatures were much smaller and by necessity did not weigh very much.Even amodern condor, the largest living bird, only weighs around 33 pounds.

Anthropologists suggest humans got the idea of a dragon by
watching a comet.They have long tails
and seem to be fiery.Virtually every
ancient society came up with dragon images.However, that did not make them real.

Once again, fiction had turned into supposed fact.

Kerry

We’re pretty good at doing that sort of thing.Take the end of the world supposedly
occurring on December 21.There are
people who believe it.They are actually
storing food and water for that terrible day.They should be able to have a fine picnic on the 22nd.

That’s how propaganda works.Say it enough times, and someone is bound to believe it.It works for claims of vampires, invented
creatures and apocalypses.It works in
politics, too, where people actually belief the absurd things said about
political figures by their opponents.That’s how we were saddled with eight years of George W. Bush after the
“swift boat” assault on John Kerry.

It works with religion, too.

Say something loud enough and long enough, some people will
believe it.Throw in threats of eternal
damnation and physical abuse in this life, and a whole lot more will join the
bandwagon.

As with Cage and the rest, however, the drumbeat doesn’t
turn fiction into fact.

Long-time
religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious
history.He also speaks at various
religious organizations throughout Florida.You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.He is the author of the famed Unauthorized
Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel
Writers Get Their Information; Noel:
The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols;and Dummies Guide to Comparative
Religion.His books are available on Amazon.com,
Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.He can also be followed on Twitter.

You
can enroll in his on-line class, Comparative Religion for Dummies, at
http://www.udemy.com/comparative-religion-for-dummies/?promote=1

About Me

During his career, Bill has been a newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, advertising copywriter and writer/editor of NASCAR programs, among other jobs. He has won three international awards for stories and programs while working for International Speedway Corp. and was named 2000 Florida Feature Writer of the Year.
He has published four books to date and his writing has appeared in hundreds of local, regional, state and national publications.